Women who express milk at work are being denied adequate breaks, a national inquiry hears

Workplace Editor

Women who return to work after giving birth have been forced to express milk in a car park or toilet, while others have leaked milk onto their desk after being denied the opportunity to take a break, a national inquiry has heard.

In its submission to the Human Rights Commission's pregnancy and return to work national review, Unions NSW said many women needing to express milk at work had been unable to access appropriate lactation rooms.

''When another union member requested a break to express milk she was told that she needed to wait until another staff member could relieve her before she could leave her desk,'' the submission said.

''The member was forced to wait a considerable time causing her milk to leak and increasing her risk of mastitis.''

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Unions NSW said the right of employees to request extended parental leave and flexible working arrangements to meet caring needs should be strengthened under the Fair Work Act. It said employees should also be given an avenue to appeal any decisions made by management and employers to reject such a request.

''These appeal rights should provide employees with access to the Fair Work Commission for conciliation and arbitration,'' the submission says.

Jenny Singleton, from the NSW Public Service Association, said she had received reports of women being denied the opportunity to express milk in the workplace. She said one woman had been forced to express milk in a toilet which had a faulty lock. An employee walked in on her and then told colleagues that it was ''gross when women express milk''.

''Management didn't do anything about it and she was too afraid to take it further because she didn't want to risk losing her flexible working conditions,'' she said.

A survey of Public Service Association members found that 77 per cent of 713 respondents said they had missed out on an opportunity for promotion while pregnant, and 71 per cent said they had missed out of training or development opportunities.

It also found that 79 per cent of women who responded said they had been subjected to inappropriate comments by supervisors while pregnant. Ms Singleton said many women had been denied the right to seek flexible working conditions after giving birth and returning to work.

In its submission to the inquiry, the Australian Industry Group said a common challenge for employers in blue-collar industries was dealing with requests for flexible work that conflicted with rosters. The challenge did not arise to the same extent in white-collar jobs.

"The main reasons for this are that flexible working hours are more easily accommodated and options such as job-share or working from home are more accessible to both the employer and employee,’’ the submission said.

"Nonetheless, some smaller employers...find it challenging to accommodate requests for part-time work in circumstances where the employee, prior to parental leave, was employed on a full-time basis.

"Many of these employers report that, despite their best efforts, the requests could not be accommodated, or were very difficult to accommodate, because of the direct and indirect costs for the employers in recruiting a new employee....’’

The submission said inflexible provisions in workplace awards ‘‘also create barriers to the accommodation of requests for flexible working arrangements made by employees returning to work from a period of parental leave’’.

A draft submission by the Australian Council of Trade Unions said many women resigned from their job to have a baby because of limited access to unpaid leave and flexible return to work options.

Many also experienced a loss of seniority and access to training and career paths and unreasonable refusal by employers to accommodate them.

30 comments so far

Words fail me about this.Why is our society so helll-bent on making life difficult for mothers and their children.Most mothers face a choice of , work or starve, for themselves and their families.And yet society makes it as difficult as it can for nursing mothers.Some commentators even expressing the view of a mother breastfeeding in public as uncomfortable for them to view.Who would have thought we were born with no clothes, and in fact many indigenous tribes still wear no clothes.The needs to be an area set aside for women where they can express milk in private. This is a ridiculous situation I feel.

Commenter

Betty

Date and time

February 10, 2014, 5:48PM

Why should mothers get an easier run than the rest of us? In the first example, I am sure the same would have been said of any other worker who might have needed to go to the toilet. What makes mothers (or fathers for that matter) so freakin' special? Nobody forces you to have a baby or to return to work. Would it be OK if I had injured myself, let's say in a bicycle accident, decided to return to work and then proceeded to expect paid time off to go to medical appointments? Of course it wouldn't.

If you need to express milk, maybe it's too early to be back at work. If you really need to be back at work, maybe you shouldn't have had a child in the first place?

As a single man, I am sick to death of having my working life dictated to by the needs of parents. If everyone is supposed to be equal, why should we give lactating mothers or anyone else any special consideration?

Commenter

MotorMouth

Location

Sydney

Date and time

February 10, 2014, 8:15PM

Agree. Some people's attitudes and sensibilities are beyond sense or logic. It's not even as though much of a breast is exposed when feeding a child. Mostly much less than many items of apparel, but then again, to some a sexualised breast is ok, but a functional and functioning one is not. These people need to grow up.

Commenter

Warwick

Date and time

February 11, 2014, 5:39AM

Betty, like you, I'm also extremely hot and bothered about this lactation business. Freedom of expression is a basic right and here we have yet another example of inadvertent political oppression to which employers, whose only concern in life seems to be running a business when they should spend more time thinking about all the contingencies and nuances of perfect equality, have thus far seemed oblivious. Why weren't they thinking about this all along, for heaven's sake? Because they're MEN! And capitalists, to boot.

Commenter

Australian Society for Rational Dressing

Location

Sydney

Date and time

February 11, 2014, 5:58AM

Dear God, whatever happened to equal opportunty? I have no words to explain this discrimination . And yes, I am a grandmother who fought for women's rights. Where are today's angry young women?

Commenter

Norbert

Date and time

February 10, 2014, 6:03PM

This is one of womens' fundamental body functions and should be catered for.....Time we stepped out of the repressed era and show some respect to new mothers who return to the work place.

Commenter

Jack

Location

Sydney

Date and time

February 10, 2014, 6:37PM

As a nursing mother this really hits home for me. My son is 1 year old and I still nurse him on demand which tends to be hourly. Expressing milk is not an option for me, and my work place refused to allow me to work from home even though they allowed my former colleague - a manager and stay at home dad - to work from home in the same role that I had. They demanded that I commit to a full time role in the office. After giving maternity and paternity leave to other employees and then telling me that they no longer do this (when I was 26 weeks pregnant and I worked there for 3 years), I have had enough of them and have resigned.

Commenter

Pheazoid

Date and time

February 10, 2014, 7:30PM

I guess I am a 'lucky' one. My employer installed blinds on one of the small meeting rooms so that when I returned to work at 4 months I could continue to express. They allowed me to come back to work part time and to structure my hours so that I could get home to breast feed my daughter before he settled down for the night. They even structured meetings so that I could express without angst. Thanks to my work environment my child was raised exclusively on breast milk for the first 6 months, didn't have cow's milk before 12 months (never had formula) and was breast fed for 16 months. I never felt uncomfortable about my need to express during the work day and, importantly, I never took advantage of the flexibility they gave me to enable me to meet my needs. (nb. the company I work for has 40 employees, a male CEO and a domination of male Directors).

Commenter

Jan

Date and time

February 10, 2014, 7:34PM

With twelve years experience under my belt and three years off being a mum, I was consistently told I was dreaming if I thought I would find part-time work in my industry.

My favourite moment whilst job searching has been the recruiter who headhunted me getting the sh*ts on the phone when I said I could only commit to two days per week this year and three the next.

She told me she could not help me until I was prepared to come back full time, then hung up on me.

You called me lady!!

Commenter

Meaningful part time work wanted

Date and time

February 10, 2014, 7:59PM

..... so where is the baby to feed? stuck in child care for 12 hours of course....